A Channel Seven commentator has been criticised for saying Matildas midfielder Katrina Gorry has retained her competitive instincts despite becoming a mother, as the opening match of the Women’s World Cup gave the network a national broadcast audience of 1.974 million.
“Certainly motherhood has not blunted her competitive instincts, that’s for sure,” Seven’s David Basheer said, as the Matildas midfielder won a tackle.
“She is one fighter for Australia.”
“Motherhood hasn’t blunted her competitive instincts” huh? #WomensWorldCup2023
— Emma Alberici (@albericie) July 20, 2023
The Matildas won their opening Women’s World Cup match 1-0, overcoming the shock loss of captain Sam Kerr just before kick-off in Sydney.
Seven dominated TV viewing on Thursday night, with a metro audience of 1.24m, beating the Ashes Series on Nine, which had an audience of 546,000.
Seven’s total audience for the match reached 1.974 million when the 196,000 viewers who streamed the show on 7plus were added. There were a record-breaking 75,784 fans in attendance at Stadium Australia.
Optus Sport does not release figures for people who watched through the Optus subscription app.
On social media fans called out Basheer’s comment about Gorry.
“Don’t know if that commentator has ever met a mother … The most instinctively competitive people on earth,” comedian Dan Ilic said on Twitter.
Although Basheer was praising Gorry’s form in the second-half of the match, the remark was perceived as sexist. The network has not responded to a request for comment.
Gorry gave birth to daughter Harper in 2021. “I feel like my body’s in better shape than it ever has been before,” Gorry told Guardian Australia earlier this month. “After I had her it’s almost like my body went and reset. And little niggles that I had before her have just gone away and never come back. So it’s been pretty cool how it’s almost just refreshed my whole body.”
Did the channel 7 commentator just say “certainly motherhood hasn’t blunted her competitive instincts” about Gorry WTF?!
— Saman Shad (@muminprogress) July 20, 2023
Viewers were also reminded more than once that several of the players on the field were mothers, in contrast to a men’s match when viewers are not likely to be told that many players are fathers.
The FIFA Women’s World Cup was the most popular program on Thursday, with the biggest audience in Sydney (439,000) then Melbourne (373,000) and Brisbane (222,000).
Seven had a high viewing share with 40.3%, followed by Nine on 30.8%, Ten on 11.2%, ABC on 10.3% and SBS 7.4%.
According to Seven, the game peaked at 2.28 million viewers.
Seven’s head of network sport, Lewis Martin, said it was a great start to the Matildas’ campaign.
“The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 will be the biggest global sporting event of the year, the most-attended standalone women’s sporting event in history and a true celebration of women’s sport,” Martin said. “We’re honoured to be bringing the key matches to all of Australia live and free.”
